


May, 2014

by what_alchemy



Series: Timestamp [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant, Truth or Dare, drunk on asgardian mead, tropes galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1295479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_alchemy/pseuds/what_alchemy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let the record state that no one should ever play junior high games with Bruce Banner."</p>
            </blockquote>





	May, 2014

The carpet in Thor’s castle felt like sumptuous furs on Steve’s skin. He wanted to roll around and around. So he did.

“Oh my God, it’s finally happened,” he heard Tony say. “Steve’s drunk — where’s my camera? For the love of Odin’s eye patch, where’s my camera?”

Steve flopped onto his back and squinted against the series of flashes that burst in front of his eyes.

“I’m putting this on Twitter as soon as we get back,” Clint said.

“You don’t have Twitter,” Tony said. “Also, you would be bad at it, never get Twitter.”

“What’s your point here, Stark?”

“Give me those,” Natasha said. Steve heard grappling, and then a dizzying chorus of “hey!” rose up around him before he rolled up into a sitting position and blinked hard until his vision sharpened. They were all on the floor in Tony’s suite, surrounded by lavish cushions and blankets and even furs. Thor was sacked out on his back next to Phil, who seemed to be making sure Thor didn’t spill any mead on himself.

“You are the worst,” Tony said to Natasha, pouting. Beside him, Pepper rolled her eyes and tilted a commiserating smile Steve’s way. He felt his face stretch around a big answering grin. “Oh my God, look at him, this is the best moment of my entire life. Big Red, give me my camera back, this is cruel and unusual punishment, haven’t you ever heard of the Geneva convention?”

“Have some water, Steve,” Bruce said, and then there was a giant glass beer mug in Steve’s hand, three quarters of the way full of water.

“Thanks,” Steve said. “I’m fine, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bruce said.

“Just tipsy, which is nice. Do you know how long it’s been since I was tipsy?”

“Tell us, Old Man Rogers,” Tony said. “And then tell us about the price of milk and this newfangled thing called ‘refrigeration.’”

“This mead is great, right?” Steve said.

“I like it,” Clint said. He took a swig of his, then topped it off with a splash from the pitcher. Steve drained his own before having a go at the water.

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, waving his hands. “Cap: truth or dare.”

“Oh, Tony, no,” Pepper said, but Thor sat up and Clint clapped his hands. Bruce and Phil seemed to groan in unison, but Natasha had a particular gleam in her eye that could only mean trouble.

“What?” Steve said. 

“It is a most diverting game,” Thor said. “The lady Darcy is a cunning and skillful opponent.”

“Please tell me you mooned someone really important,” Tony said. Thor grinned at him, but said nothing. 

“Hey,” Steve said. “Is this a mooning game?” He had learned the hard way that “mooning” now had a meaning other than pining after someone hopelessly. “I don’t want to play a mooning game.”

“Okay okay, rules!” Tony said, holding his hands up like a traffic controller. “No one is allowed to make Steve moon anyone, even though the sight of that ass would probably usher in world peace. Agreed?”

There was a rumble of agreement, and if Clint looked a little disappointed when he shot Phil _a look_ , well, Steve was a magnanimous kind of guy who could pretend it never happened.

“Now that that’s settled,” Tony said, clapping his hands once and leaning rather precariously into the circle so he could look Steve blearily in the eye. “Truth or dare.”

“Um.” It _seemed_ straightforward, but so had “mooning,” and Steve never wanted a repeat of the events of May 23rd, 2013. “What’s the difference?”

Tony rolled his eyes expansively, but it was Natasha who piped up to explain.

“It’s a parlor game favored by adolescents who use it to extract embarrassing information or outrageous actions from their age-mates. If you pick truth, you have to answer any single question posed to you honestly. If you pick dare, well. At least no one can make you moon anyone.” 

“It was my penis on the photocopier!” Thor boomed suddenly.

“Oh my God,” Steve said, along with everyone else.

“Indeed!” Thor looked as happy as anyone could look, and he tipped more mead down his throat.

“Truth!” Steve said. “I pick truth.”

Tony actually squealed, and if Steve were a lesser man he might not let that pass, but he wasn’t, and he did, and he could pat himself on the back about it later.

“Real talk, Cap,” Tony said. “Can you or can you not still touch unicorns?”

Steve had never seen a unicorn, much less touched one, and he’d thought they weren’t real. But he was sitting in a palace on another planet, twenty-seven years old almost a century after he was born, and he probably shouldn’t be provincial about it. But when he looked around, Pepper, Phil, and Bruce had fixed him with sympathetic looks, Clint and Natasha seemed interested but were trying not to show it, Tony was positively bursting with glee, and Thor looked about as befuddled as Steve felt.

“You’re making fun of me,” Steve said. “Why are you making fun of me?”

“That’s a yes,” Tony said, and he stuck his hand out to Clint. “Captain Spandex over there is pure as the driven mother superior, you owe me ten thousand dollars.” He opened and closed his fingers spastically. 

“Wait, what?” Steve said.

“He’s being vulgar, Steve,” Pepper said. “You don’t actually have to answer.”

“He’s asking if you’ve ever had sex,” Natasha said, and Steve suddenly felt as if he were a fraction of his size, frail and asthmatic with hands and feet that would never warm up.

“Forfeit is you have to streak in the streets of Asgard,” Tony said.

“No it’s not,” Bruce said.

“Forfeit is you have to kiss Odin’s eye socket while I record it for a Vine.”

“Tony,” Pepper said, but before anyone else could censure Tony, and before Tony could get another word in, Steve said, “I’ve had sex.” 

The room went silent and everyone stared at him. Tony’s eyes were big and brown and really, someone that infuriating should not have eyes like that. It compelled people to give him everything he wanted and more. 

And then, Clint screamed.

“Ten thousand cold hard, Stark!” he crowed. “I’m gonna hire a skywriter to put ‘Tony Stark loves Dell’ right over the tower.” 

Tony gasped. “Wait wait wait, this isn’t verified,” he said. “For all we know, he thinks fondue is sex. We need details, Steve.”

“Those aren’t the terms of the game,” Phil said. “He answered your question and now it’s his turn to ask someone else.”

Steve wasn’t feeling very tipsy anymore, but he didn’t want to give Tony the satisfaction. He batted at a lock of hair that was tickling his forehead, and then he looked at Phil straight on and said, “Truth or dare.”

Phil’s eyebrows went up. “Truth,” he said.

“When you said you had design input on my uniform…”

Tony seemed to be choking on his own amusement, but Phil was unruffled.

“You gotta ask a question there, Steve.”

“Did you or did you not tighten it around the glutes for your own personal pleasure?”

Clint and Tony fell into each other cackling, but Phil just sat up straight and dignified. 

“It’s a good tactical measure to have clothes that skim the body and don’t make sounds or catch on things.” 

“Just answer the question, Phil,” Bruce said.

“While that was not the primary motivation, I will admit that I did consider it a happy bonus, okay?”

Steve watched Phil try valiantly not to flush, but it was a losing battle. Steve put him out of his misery by clinking their mugs of mead together before taking another draw. 

“All right, Thor,” Phil said, and Thor perked up. “Truth or dare?”

“I have nothing to hide,” Thor said, and Steve heard Tony snort. “Truth.”

“Midgardian mythology has you married to Lady Sif,” Phil said. “So what’s the story there? P.S. If you’re jerking Dr. Foster around, I’ll cut you.”

Thor laughed his booming laugh, but there was an edge of sadness to it.

“I would not seek a quarrel with you, Son of Coul,” he said. “You would be too mighty a foe. But no, of the sons of Odin, it was not me upon whom Sif’s gaze landed many centuries ago.” 

“Hold up,” Tony said. “Are you saying Sif and Loki…”

“Don’t think about it, oh my God,” Bruce said. 

“It is a sad business,” Thor said gruffly, shoulders hunching inward. “For Sif and for Loki and for everyone. Let us return to exposing our genitals.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, “I didn’t know.” But Thor just smiled at him, a little brittle, and waved a hand in the air as if it could erase the last minute, or maybe the entire reality of what his brother had become.

“My lady Pepper,” he said. “Truth — or dare?”

“You know, usually I’m a dare kind of girl, but I think you might be in a whole other league on that,” Pepper said with a smile. “Truth.”

“Does Tony Stark truly possess the raw sexual prowess of which he boasts so freely?”

“Hey!”

Pepper threw her head back and laughed, the long line of her neck pale and perfect. Steve itched to draw it, but he didn’t have his supplies, didn’t even have a camera to capture it. He frowned, trying to commit the sight to memory.

“If he does not, may I suggest an outing with my shield-brother, Fandral?” Thor said. 

“Thanks, Thor,” Pepper said. “I’ve worked too long training this one out of bad habits and encouraging good ones to give up now.”

“I object to this line of questioning,” Tony said. Pepper patted him on the head, but cast her eyes over to Natasha.

“Natasha,” she said. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Natasha said without hesitation

“Yay!” Pepper clapped her hands together. “Teach Steve some ballet.”

Steve jerked his head up, mouth dropping open to protest, but Natasha was already up and striding smoothly toward him, hand out and smile — a warm, genuine, happy smile — on. He couldn’t refuse, even though the floor was covered in fur throw, and even though they didn’t have the shoes or the bar or anything. She showed him positions first through fifth, and Steve didn’t even mind how he stumbled or how the others laughed. It wasn’t mean, and Natasha just looked so pleased. She showed him the arm positions to go along with the feet positions, and he did exactly one terrible plie. Natasha patted him on the shoulder when he was done, then stepped back and swept her arms out before her as if presenting him, and the rest of the group cheered for him. He felt acutely the flush of the mead and the stretch of the goofy grin on his face as he took a bow.

“Bruce,” Natasha said after they both sat down again. Bruce’s head came up, eyebrow raised clear to his hairline as if he never expected the game to come round his way. “Pick.”

“Um, truth?” he said. 

“Sad,” Natasha said, and Bruce shrugged. “Well, in keeping with the spirit of this game: sex. Can you have it without going green?” 

Bruce gave a short laugh and his shoulders hitched up in another shrug.

“Probably,” he said. “Haven’t tried it since the Other Guy came to stay.”

“What?” Tony said. “Bruce, my main man, my one and only Jolly Green, what are you saying?”

“Leave it, Tony,” Pepper said.

“It’s fine,” Bruce said. He slouched back next to Steve, body relaxed, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “He’ll never leave it alone otherwise.”

“Are you telling me you’ve been hiding your sex bomb light under a bushel for — for seven _years_? Thor, don’t you have servants? I need smelling salts.”

“I think you know exactly what my reasoning is here, Tony, and so does everyone else, so we don’t actually have to rehash it.”

“Bruce. Baby. Kumquat. Tell your Uncle Tony what you like and he’ll find you a buffet — nay, a _cornucopia_ of—”

“All right,” Pepper said, slapping a hand over Tony’s mouth. “Bruce, I think it’s your turn.” 

“Clint.” Clint popped up from his place whispering into Phil’s ear. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare, duh,” he said. 

“I dare you to…. moon Odin.”

Clint’s mouth dropped open and Thor’s eyes went round and a hush overtook the room.

“Bruce?” Tony said solemnly. “I think I love you.”

Clint put on his _I’m a serious SHIELD agent_ face and stood up straight and tall, squaring his shoulders as if he were about to face his executioner. Thor stood too, towering over him, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“I will lead the way,” he said. 

And so Bruce, Steve, Tony, Pepper, Phil and Natasha trailed through the halls of the palace after them. For posterity. Posterior posterity. Steve giggled; maybe he was still a little tipsy.

When it came time to do the actual deed, Steve couldn’t quite bring himself to watch. He offered to keep the guards stationed outside the royal quarters distracted while the rest of them went inside looking serious and official and only slightly drunk.

“So…” Steve said to the guards. “Do you guys like working in the palace?”

The guards’ eyes flickered toward each other.

“It is a great honor to serve the All Father and his family,” the one on the right said.

“Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there,” Steve said.

“No,” the guard on the left said.

“Oh.”

Just then, a great bellow reverberated from the king’s quarters, and the guards threw open the doors only to be bowled over by a pack of Midgardians, led by Thor, running like there were bilgesnipe at their heels. 

“Sorry!” Steve called behind him as he took off after them. 

Back in Tony’s suite, they all collapsed back onto the floor laughing. Clint chugged what was left of his mug of mead, then cast it aside and pointed at Bruce.

“This guy’s a dark horse,” he said. “Let the record state that no one should ever play junior high games with Bruce Banner. He officially wins Truth or Dare forever.” 

Bruce wore a serene little smile when he bent forward in a bow. 

“If I recall correctly,” he said, “there’s still one person who has to go.” At everyone’s blank look, Bruce sighed and jerked his chin in Tony’s direction.

“Huh?” Tony said.

“Clint, make it good,” Bruce said.

“Oh! Tony, truth or dare?”

“Oh _hell_ no, Artemis,” Tony said. “Truth.”

“You are the boringest, Stark.”

“Suck it up, Barton.”

“Okay. Hmm.” Clint crossed his arms and cupped his chin, drumming at his mouth with his fingers. He squinted a little, and then jabbed a finger at Tony. “How many celebrities have you actually banged? I don’t believe the internet.”

“What are we counting as a celebrity? Like, just movie stars and models, or political figures and athletes and journalists too?”

“You’re only stroking his ego, you know,” Natasha said.

“And of course,” Tony went on, “I’m seeing this super hot CEO right now, her name is in the papers and stuff, does that count?” Beside him, Pepper rolled her eyes, but she sort of melted into him and he looked at her like _she_ was the supreme ruler of all nine realms, and something inside Steve twisted with an envy he hated himself for feeling.

“Anyone the tabloids would have a particular field day with,” Clint said. 

“Uh. Thirty?” Tony paired a froggy kind of _I don’t know_ face with a lift and drop of his shoulders. “I feel like thirty. The ’90s are sort of hazy, let’s be real.”

“Someday someone’s gonna come to your door claiming to be your kid, you realize,” Bruce said. 

“Are you slut shaming me, Kermit? I’m hurt. I’m appalled. I’m never gonna get over it.”

Bruce threw a pillow and it smacked Tony right in the face. He squawked and Pepper laughed a little too hard.

“My turn again!” Tony said, whipping the pillow back at Bruce. “Steven Grant Rogers, gird your loins!”

Steve groaned. He’d thought he was safe, once the mooning was over. Where could this game possibly go after that? But he could tell by the look in Tony’s eye that he had no such luck. He tried to calculate the chances of Tony remembering he wanted to know more about Steve’s capacity for unicorn touching versus how much Tony might like to get him to serenade Volstagg while wearing ladies’ lingerie, or something. 

“Um. Truth?” Steve said. 

Tony’s grin looked like it should have had feathers sticking out of it. “Give us the skinny on all this sex you’ve had,” he said. “I’m talking who, when, where, what positions, how often, how many lucky ladies boarded that star spangled train — every detail, big boy.”

Steve scowled. “Dare, then,” he said.

“I _dare you_ you tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you zombie Jesus in the sky.”

“Why are you like this, Tony?” Steve demanded. “Why is everyone nowadays like this?” And maybe it came out too harsh, because suddenly everyone was looking at him all concerned, and the drunken looseness that marked Tony’s features had been replaced by a tense furrow in his brow. 

“Cap—”

“You wanna know?” Steve spat. His blood felt hot, and all the stuff he’d bottled up and tried not to think on since waking up in this brave new world where everything was just slightly askew came pouring out of his gullet like poison. “You wanna know how I loved my best friend from the moment I met him, and how we fell into bed when we were teenagers, and how I loved him through every stifling summer and terrible winter while he went to work to support us both and I just sat there getting sicker all the time until the damned war came and he went off without me, and how he went with dames all the time because that’s what was expected and I had to try not to be sore about it, and how we never said a word to each other about what we were doing because saying it out loud would make it something we couldn’t pretend wasn’t happening while we were just trying to be two normal fellas trying to make ends meet? Or hey, Tony, how about how he fell off the side of a cliff and _died_ because he followed me into battle, do you want to hear about that? How about—” He choked then, the words stopped up in his throat, and his vision blurred. Before he knew it, he was on his feet and making his way back to his own suite, where he barricaded the door behind him and went out to the balcony to look at the glittering lights of the capital of Asgard. 

He gripped the railing even as he bent halfway over to control his breathing. He felt tingly and uneven, like he might fall over, like his seams might come undone. He leaned further and laid his burning forehead against the cool of the railing, his lungs tight, his heart going too fast and skipping too much. He felt like every molecule of his being was working to keep his body and soul together right now. 

The _truth_ Tony wanted so badly was that missing Bucky felt simultaneously like something essential had been carved out of him by force and like a weight that was just this side of unbearable had settled over his neck like a yoke. If Steve’s insides had been hollowed by Bucky’s death, then Bucky’s absence had filled that place up, but it was the wrong shape, and it had claws like razors. It tore at him every morning when he woke up alone in a new century, and it tore at him when every breath he took reminded him that he owed it to Bucky, who got him his medicine and rubbed his back through every hacking cough, making sure he stayed alive, and it tore at him every time he turned around to tell Bucky something funny or strange and realized all over again that he was never going to see Bucky again. 

The truth was, the only way Steve had found to get through his days without him was not to think about him at all. It was hard, especially when he saw the fellas who got to hold hands in public, or saw two ladies in wedding gowns in Central Park. It was hard when Clint and Phil bickered all affection and no rancor, or when Tony and Pepper sat tangled together on the couch because they didn’t know how not to be close anymore. It was hard when he wanted to draw, and his hands only traced the shape of Bucky’s face or the lines of his body. It was hard when he came home with his blood rushing and his balls full, and closing his eyes only pulled up images of a quirking red mouth and filthy flirting blue eyes, framed by black lashes. It was hard, but sometimes — sometimes, Steve succeeded. 

They would have to go back to Earth soon. Thor’s birthday was over, and something outlandish had probably befallen the city of New York while they’d been gone, and Steve would have to face the echo of his guilt on every street corner. It was easier, in Asgard, where the two of them had no memories together, but coming home after a trip always battered at his heart. It had been more than two years since he’d been dragged out of the ice, more than two years since he’d failed to catch Bucky before he fell and listened to him scream all the way to his death. Sometimes, Steve wondered if it would ever get better, but he also knew that if it got better, it would mean he was forgetting the most important person he’d ever had in his life, and he never wanted that. The pain and guilt — those were the prices he paid for having known the kind of connection he shared with James Buchanan Barnes, and he’d gladly pay them forever.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, his face pressed against the rail, but he was cold by the time he felt the atmosphere change: someone had come onto his balcony. 

“How’d you get in?” Steve asked, not moving.

“Super magical powers,” Tony said. “Also: Thor.”

Steve pushed off the railing and stood up. The capitol gleamed resplendent even in the night time, and he could even see, far in the distance, the sea. He shivered as a breeze ghosted past him. Tony shuffled up beside him, propping his elbows on the rail.

“Didn’t mean to out you back there,” he said. “Didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen.”

“Is that your version of an apology?”

“Are you taking it?”

“I guess.”

“Then yeah.” 

“You do a piss poor job of it, Tony.”

“Hey.” Tony slid up closer and popped his head into the line of Steve’s vision. “I’m sorry, okay? I am. And not just for my assitude. I’m sorry you lost your guy.”

Steve exhaled, shaky. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to get used to it,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s something you get used to.” Tony said.

“Do you have a point here, Tony?”

“Just that I don’t think anyone’s said that to you,” he said. “I don’t think anyone’s said, ‘hey Steve, this thing you’re going through gargles donkey balls, and however you’re feeling is okay, and we’re behind you.’ So. There’s that.”

Steve’s eyes prickled and his throat felt tight. He turned his face away so Tony wouldn’t look at him, and Tony backed off and planted his hands on the rails to look out at the city. 

“A lot of people lost their sweethearts in the war,” Steve said after a while, when he thought he could keep his voice from cracking. He balled his fists and dropped them to the railing with a thud. “I don’t know why I can’t—”

“All those people who lost their sweethearts in the war had like a million years to deal with it,” Tony said. “And I mean — every grief is unique, you know? The fact that loads of other people have losses doesn’t diminish yours.”

Steve couldn’t think of anything to say, so he just nodded. Tony smacked him on the shoulder and moved toward the door.

“Come on then, Sno-Cap,” he said. “Thor’s got some kind of surprise for you.”

“I think I’m just gonna stay in for the night, Tony,” Steve said. “I — I really appreciate your coming to… tell me those things. Thanks.”

Tony blinked at him, head tilted, and for a moment he looked as guileless as a child.

“I think it’s really important you do what the future king of Asgard asks, Steve.”

“That’s not what you say when he’s in your kitchen asking for full size boars to eat with his bare hands.”

“Yeah well.” Tony shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked up onto the ball of his feet. “I’m mercurial, deal with it. Also, he’s waiting outside your suite and if we take much longer he’s probably gonna barge in like some…giant Norse god.”

Steve snorted, and the vise around his heart eased up, just a little bit.

“Take a long time coming up with that one?”

“Shut up, it’s been a long week of making merry. Can you believe that guy’s twelve hundred years old? Doesn’t look a day over five.”

“I heard he moisturizes.”

“Oh my God, was that a joke?” Tony splayed a hand over his heart. “I’m verklempt.”

Steve bumped him with a shoulder. Tony shot a grin up at him, and Steve knew that for the next little while, he could keep putting one foot in front of the other, and things would be what passed for okay. Outside his suite, Thor knocked the wind out of him with a hug, and when he was finally released, Tony was gone, and Thor’s arm was slung around his neck as he dragged him from the castle. 

“Um, Thor?” Steven ventured after they appeared to have left the heart of the city. “Where are we going?”

“To visit Heimdall, the watcher of the realms, gatekeeper of Asgard, brother to Lady Sif, and my stout and honored friend. You will like him.”

“Okay,” Steve said. They had met Heimdall briefly when they arrived in Asgard, but they’d left him to his post after an exchange of greetings. Steve didn’t know what Heimdall had to do with any of the events of the night. “I mean no disrespect, Thor, but I’m kinda tired and wrung out and I think I got a little drunker than I meant to, so… why are we going to see Heimdall?”

“His eyesight is keener even than our Hawkeye’s. He sees all.”

“Oh.” That didn’t really answer Steve’s question, but pressing further seemed impolite and even ungrateful, and wanting to at all made him feel like he was missing something obvious. Again. He was, as Tony might put it, completely over feeling like that. He took a deep breath and resigned himself to being in the dark until he met this Heimdall and figured out why Thor brought him on this jaunt just when he wanted a good wallow. 

They got to the gates of Asgard, which were as awe-inspiring as they had been when they’d first arrived, and Steve gave himself a moment to bask in the beauty of the cosmos. It made him feel minuscule, and yet he somehow felt big enough to contain universes. 

“It is humbling, is it not, to gaze into the whole of creation?” came the low rumble of Heimdall’s voice. 

“Yes, sir,” Steve said. He glanced back at Heimdall, who stood stately and huge before his staff, clad in the ornate armor of his station. Thor gave him an encouraging nod, but Steve screwed his face up at him and raised one hand, palm up, in question. Thor bounced his eyebrows at him as if that had any meaning, and suddenly Steve wished he’d had the gumption to ask Thor what all this was about before they’d arrived and stood like idiots in the office of the guardian of everything. 

“Don’t be nervous,” Heimdall said. He pivoted his head and met Steve’s eyes. Hemidall’s gaze was golden and piercing, and Steve felt flayed open before him in the moment between one breath and the next. 

“That’s a bit easier said than done,” Steve said, the edge of hysteria creeping into his voice. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Heimdall cocked his head before his attention slid toward Thor. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Seeing it for himself would be more convincing than hearing it from me,” Thor said. 

“Tell me what?” Steve said. He clenched his fists at his side. He wanted to stop feeling confused every time he opened his eyes, and he wanted his friends to stop encouraging that particular feeling with their maddening obliqueness. 

Hemidall’s otherworldly eyes slid back to him.

“I have known all of the souls in the universe since I took up my post,” he said. “I know yours. And I know that of your shield-mate, James Buchanan Barnes.”

The air left Steve’s lungs in a rush and it was only because he managed to lock his knees just in time that he didn’t stumble right into the swirling vortex that was Bifrost. 

“You — you know what happened to him? You know how he felt when he… Can you tell me if it was quick, please? Can you tell me if he was in pain? He must have been so scared.”

“You misunderstand me,” Heimdall said, raising a hand to quell Steve’s words. “James Buchanan Barnes lives still. He has been a captive, and he can be freed.”

Steve pressed a hand to his mouth, and then Thor was beside him, propping him up.

“He’s been a prisoner of war all this time?” Steve whispered. “I should have looked for him, God, I should have — He must have been waiting for me and I didn’t come, God forgive me.”

“There is nothing you could have done, Captain Rogers,” Heimdall said. “Mortal hands cannot move the will of fate. What’s done is done, but perhaps you might be glad of this second chance. Most are not granted such a privilege.”

“Of course,” Steve said. He was steady enough that Thor let him go.

“After our game, I came to Heimdall to ask what had become of your shield-mate, whose name the Son of Coul knew from his travels. Heimdall told me of the tragedy that had befallen him, but he also told me your James Buchanan Barnes might be saved yet. I have already enlisted the help of my honored mother in restoring him, and if it pleases you, we may leave in the morning to seek him.”

“Restoring him? What, like make him younger?” Steve recoiled at the thought, even as he longed desperately for the same handsome young man he’d lost. “That’s not — that’s really nice of you, Thor, and I’m so grateful, but humans can’t screw around with time like that. He’s had his life, and it’s his to own.”

“I am afraid in our haste to tell you the good news, we have failed to explain it adequately,” Thor said. 

“Then explain,” Steve said, and he promised himself he could flagellate himself about his tone later.

Thor and Heimdall exchanged a look Steve couldn’t read, and Thor nodded as if giving Heimdall permission. 

“In the year 1944 of the Gregorian calendar, you found James Buchanan Barnes strapped to a chair in an enemy medical facility,” Heimdall said. “Unbeknownst to him, he had been given a variation of the same serum that wrought the changes in you, and you saved him from further experimentation. However, when he fell from the train, he survived due to the enhancements he had sustained, and Soviet forces captured him, wiped his mind, and enslaved him for use as an assassin for the next four decades. When he was not on a mission, he was frozen until such time as his captors required him again. He was in this stasis when your world underwent the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the forces keeping him enslaved scattered. He remains static still, in an abandoned bunker. It is in my power to deliver you directly to his location.”

As Heimdall spoke, Steve began to tremble, and Thor budged up against him to offer, once again, his support. When Heimdall finished, Thor piped up to tell Steve his plans for a tactical rescue, and how he would contact reinforcements from SHIELD. He detailed all the logistics of travel and communication that Steve didn’t care about. Through the white noise of the words, through the nausea that rose up at the thought of Bucky, as frozen and alone as Steve had been, and through the unmoored lightness of being caught in Heimdall’s gaze, Steve could think of only one thing.

He was going to get Bucky back. 

 

**End**


End file.
